Nathan Foster has an in-person conversation with Mimi Dixon and Richard Foster about the two introductory books in the 2024-2025 Renovaré Book Club season — Richard's classic Celebration of Discipline and Mimi's Worth Celebrating (a book biography that explores why Celebration of Discipline started a movement).

Registration for the Renovaré Book Club 2024-2025 season is open!

• Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster 
• Worth Celebrating by Mimi Dixon (Read an excerpt here.)

  Other articles, books, and podcast episodes by Richard Foster and by Mimi Dixon can be found at renovare.org

Author and podcast host Nick Page shares some guidelines for understanding the Bible and reading with a heart open to encountering God.

Show Notes

• The Mid-Faith Crisis Podcast
• Some of Nick’s Books 
• Nick Page on microblog

Mariah Velásquez, Director of the Incarnatio Center for Formation and Integration at Westmont College and Associate Director of the Martin Center, joins Nate on the Life with God podcast to talk about a favorite book—Brother Lawrence’s The Practice of the Presence of God.

Show Notes

1. Book excerpts: 

• Practicing the Presence of Christ 
• An Habitual Sense of God's Presence
• Living Each Moment with a Sense of God's Presence

2. Lectio 365 Prayer App - A helpful way to re-orient to God's presence in the morning and evening.

3. Content from the Martin Institute's recent academic workshop, "A Crisis Among Us: The Problem of Christian Immaturity" is available here.

4. You can find Mariah's writing on Conversatio.org

• The Practicing of Presence. 
• A roadmap report on spiritual formation 

Writer and editor Julia Roller joins Nate to talk about how God uses books to guide us into transforming ideas and encounters and shares about the book that changed her life.

Julia Roller is an author and editor living in San Diego, CA with her husband and three children. She is also the MomCo Coordinator at Point Loma Community Presbyterian Church. Julia's most recent book is Mom Seeks God, but some of her other books include A Year with God (with Richard J. Foster), A Year with Aslan, and 25 Books Every Christian Should Read. Connect with her at her web site, juliaroller.com, or on Instagram Julia (@julialroller) or Facebook.

Julia's suggestions for continued reading:

1. In “How Should We Read?”, Christopher Hall discusses some ways to slow down our reading and ruminate over the text. I love that although Hall’s thoughts are inspired by a desert monk (of course they are, Chris!), one of his suggested techniques involves his smartphone. 
2. I can’t think of anyone who’s written as much about spiritual reading as C.S. Lewis, and Zach Kincaid’s “A Reading Life” post on the official C.S. Lewis site is an admirable compilation of some of Lewis’s best thoughts about reading. 
3. Lyle Smith Graybeal and I wrote “How to do Spiritual Reading”, an excerpt from the introduction for 25 Books Every Christian Should Read, to offer some practical ideas for spiritual reading as well as some reasons why we should all engage in it.
4. Richard Foster reflects on the books that shaped him as a young man in this article from Leadership Journal, “How Significant Books Become Good Friends.” Many of these books made the cut for 25 Books Every Christian Should Read. 
5. My discussion with Nathan inspired me to look critically at my own all-consuming reading practice. In examining my lifelong love of reading, I had to ask the question: “Is Reading Bad for You?” (See if you can guess my answer.) 

Deep relationships take time. Renovaré board and ministry team member Margaret Campbell shares with Nate what she's learned through the years about the slow and beautiful unfolding of true friendships — with people and with God.

Joe Davis and Nick Page have been friends for over 30 years and co-host The Mid-Faith Crisis Podcast. They share with Nate about disagreement as a productive part of friendship and faith that helps us work through concepts that impact our ability to love God and others.

Show Notes

• The Mid-Faith Crisis Podcast
• Some of Nick’s Books 
• Nick Page on microblog

South African Spiritual Director Adri-Marie van Heerden talks with Nate about making friends cross-culturally, the need for humility, and learning to see others as God sees us — with great regard.

Adri-Marie's organization is called Tending the Fire. You can contact her at [email protected].

Nathan talks with prison chaplain John Paul Westin about the penitentiary as parish and learning to see each person there as God's "friends and special ones."

Show Notes

A few annotated book suggestions from John Paul:

• Cur Deus Homo — Anselm of Canterbury thinks about why God needed/chose to become human.
• The 3 Colors of Community, Christian A. Schwarz — How highly flawed individuals can use their propensity to sin to help build healthy Christian community.
• Fearfully and Wonderfully, Dr. Paul Brand and Philip Yancy — The human body (sick or healthy) can show us so much about the wonder of God and our human nature.
• The Shack, William Paul Young — God can heal the deepest wounds and betrayal.
• John's Gospel, John son of Zebedee — A look at life through the eyes of the beloved.
• Life of the Beloved — Henri Nouwen's beautiful consideration of the nature of Jesus' friendship.
• The Brother's Karamazov — Fydor Dostoevski's brilliant and crazy story of God's presence in a chaotic Russian family life.
• The Heart of the Parish, Martin Thornton — Seeing wherever you are as your parish and your life as filled with your neighbors and parisioners. Everyone.
• Hearing God — Dallas Willard's encouraging challenge to believe Jesus when he tells us we really can talk to God like we talk to one another.
• Reading the Bible with the Damned — Bob Eklad's believes that people on the margins often have intense experiences of God's involvement in their lives that are of biblical import.
• Letters and Papers from Prison —Dietrich Bonhoeffer's reflections on seeing God's loving presence in prison and how it transformed his thinking.

Audrey Elledge and Elizabeth Moore, authors of Liturgies for Wholeness, join Nate to talk about the formational power of liturgy and friendship.

Show Notes

Books by Elizabeth Moore and Audrey Elledge

• Liturgies for Hope: Sixty Prayers for the Highs, the Lows, and Everything in Between
• Liturgies for Wholeness: 60 Prayers to Encounter the Depth, Creativity, and Friendship of God in Ordinary Moments

Also mentioned in the episode:

• Every Moment Holy (liturgy series by Douglas McKelvey and other authors)

Ways to connect with Audrey and Elizabeth:

Elizabeth Moore:

Instagram

Twitter

Audrey Elledge:

Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

This meditation by Nathan Foster on Luke 22 invites us to the Mount of Olives where Jesus prayed “let this cup pass from me.”